The people and systems that control power in any society are those who value the social, economic, political, governmental, and academic framework that their power is housed in. Those in power promote behaviors that cooperate with or yield to their positions of authority. This is the way that most powerful people and systems maintain their control and anyone who attempts to go against them is faced with strong opposition from those with clout on many fronts.
How do you process major moments in your life? In the world? In recent years, my answer to that has been poetry. First, the reading of it. Poets like Rupi Kaur, Danez Smith, Andrea Gibson, and Mary Oliver put words on paper, spoke words into microphones that have spoken to my soul, that have challenged and confronted, nurtured and nourished me.
In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, we can go from being peaceful and calm with what is happening in our lives at any given moment, to suddenly being filled with the feeling of anxiousness, agitation, even panic or terror that comes like a thief in the night. More often than not, it’s nothing more than the familiar frights that we live with every day but that we do our best to hide from others. We try to make our peace with those familiar frights, because they are never too far away.